


Flipped

by KevlarMasquerade (nightsstarr)



Category: Teen Titans (Animated Series)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-29
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:34:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightsstarr/pseuds/KevlarMasquerade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU. The night that the lovely Starfire of the Teen Titans asks the mysterious thief Red X for a favor is the night it all started changing. Why does it have to be about Robin, though? It's always about Robin when it comes to Starfire.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flipped

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU. Please hold all questions, comments, and applause until the end. No flash photography is permitted in the internet. Please keep all drinks and greasy foods off your respective keyboards, and keep your arms and legs inside the car at all times. Thank you, and enjoy this request from The Blue Priestess. (PS I don't own Teen Titans

Red X landed on the ground in a crouch. Rain pounded down on either side of the bridge, creating a veritable waterfall on either side. It was disconcerting not to be able to see around the outside of the bridge, and the sound of water drowned out the sound of any expected or unexpected approach.

The young acrobat drummed his fingers on the spindly framework of the bridge absent-mindedly, half nervous, half bored. The bridge arced across Jump River, the small river that led to the estuary. There was enough space between the edge of the bridge and the river that standing there was not crowded, even if there were more people in here.

This could be an ambush. A trick. With all this rain on either side of him, he could very easily be overcome by the five Titans trapping him in here. And if any other Titans had asked to meet him, he would have refused. That was the smart thing to do.

But it was Starfire who asked him. Starfire who pleaded, with her eyes if not with her voice. Starfire he'd agreed to meet.

And now it was Starfire who held all the cards.

He'd be lying if he said that didn't make him nervous. Not the kind of nervous he was accustomed to—the fight-or-flight kind of nervous, the 'I'm up really high' kind of nervous, or even the 'stay quiet or you'll get caught' kind of nervous. It was a kind of nervous that made his throat feel too dry and his palms sweat and his stomach flip.

The somewhat-transparent curtain of rain parted in the shape of a teenage girl, and his guest entered into the dry underside of the bridge. After wiping rainwater from her face, she murmured, "I was worried you would not come."

"I'm a sucker for a damsel in distress. What's up, cutie?"

She scowled at his casual nickname for her. "I am nobody's damsel."

"Of course you're not. Especially not Robin's."

He was pushing her buttons. He was good at that. Her reaction was less than entertaining, however, as her expression became morbid and her eyes took on that pleading quality. "That is why I wished to speak with you."

"Because you're Robin's damsel?"

"No. I have been having… Suspicions."

Red X raised his eyebrows under his mask. "What kind of suspicions?"

"Robin has been most… angry lately." Her bright green eyes fixed themselves onto his mask, and it was like she was reaching through them into his stomach, which gave another funny flip.

"Angry seems about right," Red X said sarcastically. The teen vigilante tended to get carried away, leaving nasty bruises, bleeding noses, and several close calls with his birdarangs. It probably didn't help that Red X often antagonized him. But still.

"No!" she shouted, upset by Red x's evasiveness. "He is not right. Something is going wrong, and he refuses to tell me what."

"Okay, okay," Red X said hastily as her eyes actually started filling with tears. "I get it. What in particular strikes you as strange?"

"Well…" She hesitated and looked at the stream of water falling from all around them. "Um… is there not a more quiet place we may venture? I do not wish for anyone to hear."

"You picked the place, cutie. We can't hop around all over town together without attracting attention."

"This is a very delicate matter."

Red X paused. The way she was looking at him… He couldn't say no. Damn her, but he couldn't bring himself to play any part in her emotional distress. He sighed, to let her know that even though he was agreeing, she was pushing it. "Fine. I know a place. But before we go, I need to know… Why me?"

"Why you? I do not understand."

Trying to keep the hopefulness out of his voice, he clarified, "Why'd you come to me for help?" Was it because she trusted him? Because she wanted to spend time with him? Because somehow, during their encounters, among the teasing and his gluing her to the wall with a handy X, she understood how badly he longed for some real companionship? Her companionship?

"You are quite renowned for your detective skills," she explained.

Ah. His reputation preceded him. Not the answer he was hoping for, but not a bad one. "Yeah." That brought him to the next order of business. "You know I usually charge for my services?"

"I can pay," she answered quickly. Vaguely.

"Raking in the cash in the vigilante business?" Red X inquired suspiciously.

"I have credits." Immediately, Red X realized that she was talking about intergalactic credits.

"Those aren't worth much here," he reminded her. Earth was not yet a very big part of the galaxy. Earth hardly interacted with Mars, its neighbor, never mind the rest of the universe. As a result, credits were nearly worthless.

"I assure you, I have enough."

"O-kay. Well then, come here." He held out his hand for her to take and turned his attention to his belt. When the space between his order and lack of action on her part became annoying, Red X looked back up at her. She'd taken a small step back and crossed her arms defensively. "Oh, come on, cutie. I won't bite. Not on the first date."

She glared at him again. "Where are you taking me?"

"Secret," he answered shortly. When he didn't move, he said, "You're the one who wanted to get out of here. The belt's good for line-of-sight teleportation and two pre-coded destinations. I have a place in mind, and if you don't like that, we'll get a room at the nearest Hilton."

"Very well." The words came stiffly and grudgingly, as though he was coercing her into doing this just to annoy her, but they still came. And that was a victory. She extended her hand slowly, as though she suspected she was putting it into a trap that would clamp down on it. He took her hand and, with a sharp tug, pulled her forward.

She looked indignant at the forced proximity, and with a laugh he told her, "Teleporting takes up less juice if we're closer."

They shimmered together, and they reappeared at red X's favorite haunt. It wasn't where he lived—that was in a penthouse he rented under his real name in downtown jump, but it was where he kept most of his things and where he organized his meetings with clients. A theater that had been abandoned some time ago. The floorboards on stage were excellent for hiding various items, not to mention cash. There was also a wide backstage and an area below the stage. This place was the best he could have asked for.

Starfire appraised the place quietly. Next time they did this, he'd have to think about concealing the whereabouts of his hidey-holes better. With a remote, he turned on the dim light from the chandelier, which surprised Starfire.

"I rewired the electricity myself," he informed her with some bit of due pride. Starfire nodded and continued looking around at the ruined theater, where stuffing was spilling out of the flip-down chairs and railings were hanging askew on stairs and balconies. Feeling scrutinized, Red X decided to initiate their discussion. "So what's the deal with Birdlad?" he pressed, hopping onto the back of a cushy red chair and flopping into it comfortably.

Starfire remained on the stage. It occurred to him that if he sat low enough in the seat, he could probably catch a glance up her skirt. He decided to see if she had anything of interest to offer him first.

"As I said, Robin has been angry lately. It began with Felipe Garzonas (1). He was a—"

"—Serial rapist. One of his victims killed themselves. Died two weeks ago," Red X finished for her, putting on an air of boredom.

Starfire blinked at him, which made him rather proud.

"I know my turf," he explained seriously. "Go on."

"Yes. Garzonas. He was a person of interest for many weeks. We do not usually get involved in non-meta affairs, but Garzonas had successfully been avoiding arrest by the police for some time. They asked Robin to keep an eye out for Garzonas, and he took the task to heart. He would stay out late at patrol, even more so than usual. He became irate during the day, and short tempered and mean." She paused and Red X could feel the sadness radiating from her.

It annoyed him. Why was she getting so bent out of shape over a guy like that? It didn't take a genius to see that he'd always had some kind of anger issues (god forbid anyone mentioned Slade around him). He supposed that, looking back on it, Starfire seemed to have a calming effect on his disposition. That didn't excuse the way he treated people.

"He began snapping at me—at us, and he was constantly working on the Garzonas case, even after the police speculated that he left Jump. Then, one night, I was on patrol and he went with me, as part of his insistence that we girls needed to be paired up. We found a woman he raped, and Robin became most bothered. He demanded the woman tell him where Garzonas had gone, and with some difficulty she was able to recall something he said while he was walking away. Robin left right then, and I took the woman to a hospital and caught up with him as fast as I could." She paused again and Red X couldn't tell if it was to reflect on Robin or on the woman she saw.

When she began again, her voice was soft and he had to strain to hear. "I was not fast enough.I could hear Felipe Garzonas shouting as he fell over the side of the building, and Robin was watching him fall. His grappling hook gun was not in his hand. He made no attempt to catch him as he fell. I landed next to him, worried that he was hurt and this was the cause of his inaction, but there was not so much as a scratch on him. I dove over the side of the building to where Garzonas lay, but it was no use. I did not have to feel for a pulse to know that he was dead. Right then, I asked Robin if he pushed him and he… he said he did not. But it did not seem right."

This was big. None of this was reported. Nobody knew any of this. "You think Robin pushed Garzonas?"

Starfire shifted uncomfortably. "I know that he did not. Robin is my best friend. Robin is fair and good, and he would never do such a thing. But why is there some small part of me that I cannot silence that insists that he did?"

Because he did it. But insisting that would only upset her. "I'll help. Garzonas was a brute. I'd like to have a hand in clearing up his death."

"Glorious. Then it is arranged." She hesitated before asking, "Payment?"

"That part comes at the end, cutie." Not strictly true. He usually got half of his payment up front. But he didn't want to bother with credits right now.

"Do you think he deserved to die?" Starfire asked softly, her eyes lowered.

"Yes," Red X answered, and she raised her eyes hopefully. "But I don't think that's part of your job description. If you meta-vigilantes go around killing every criminal you think deserves to die, no one stands a chance. You'd control everything. You'd be the despotic rulers of some weird dystopia. We can't live that way."

"I think you are correct," Starfire agreed softly.

They were quiet for a few moments longer than were comfortable. "So what's the story between you and him?" Red X asked as casually as possible.

"Excuse me?" was the sharp reply.

"You know. Boyfriend-girlfriend, star-crossed lovers, hookup buddies…"

She fixed him with a fierce glare. It was the kind of look he usually got right before twin blasts of green energy hit him dead on. "Do not bring that up with me again."

"Touchy, huh?" he pressed.

"That is enough for one night," the now enraged girl concluded, floating off the stage and giving Red X a wonderful, if brief, view up her skirt.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he said pleasantly.

"I will meet you when it rains next," she informed him flatly.

"Bridge?"

"No need. I will simply come here."

"As you wish." He gave her his standard two finger salute and made no move to leave.

She left hastily, taking with her Red X's relaxed behavior. This was big. If the Bird-brat really did kill this guy—and Red X suspected that he did—it might mean the permanent end of the Titans. Not that he really minded the Titans. Their cute attempts to stop him were amusing, even if he did suffer a punch from short, dark, and spiky that broke the number one rule of the bro code. Their eventual breakup would make things a hell of a lot easier around here, though. Imagine a contract where he didn't have to factor in the Titans' annoying tendency to appear into his plans or the pay.

What was with Starfire, though? 'The next time it rains'? That might not be for a week. What if it rained at eight in the morning? Was she seriously under the impression that he lived here?

With that thought, and without getting up from where he was laying sprawled against two house seats, he pushed the teleport pad on his belt.

He appeared laying on his bed in his ritzy penthouse building. His Flying Graysons poster was taped to the wall above his head, and he looked at it and sighed. He'd pinned it there to remind himself every day of himself. It was so easy to get wrapped up in the life of thievery, of going head-to-head with the Titans, of the dog eat dog and every man for himself attitude that pervaded the lifestyle of thieves.

Would his parents be proud of him, if they knew what he'd become? …Probably not. He tried not to care, he really did. It was unhealthy to live life because your parents would want you to. He wanted to make something of himself—maybe even become some teen wonder. He certainly had the acrobatic skills and the inventive know-how, as evidenced by the Red X suit, which he built himself, from the sewing to the xynothium stabilization. The only thing was, to be a hero, you needed stuff. To get stuff, you needed money. It was hard for a boy his age to get money.

He stayed at Haly's Circus for as long as he could before it split up, and he even tried to get a job in Gotham. Turns out, jobs for kids either pay incredibly poorly or are incredibly seedy. He couldn't rent a place, and he was not going to an orphanage or whatever. There was nothing left for him in Gotham, so he made his way across the country. Sleeping on park benches in summer and at bus stations in winter wasn't very appealing, but it toughened him up.

He had been scavenging materials as he traveled cross-country—Nomex here, Kevlar there, metal and raw materials he could shape into his Xes. By the time he got to Jump, all he needed was the xynothium, and he knew that Jump had plenty of it, if you knew where to look.

Unfortunately, Jump also had a team of heroes. The Titans. It wasn't all bad, though. The Tiatans had Starfire.

She'd always been a weak point for him. It was kind of pathetic. Hell if he knew why. Maybe it was because she was so gentle but she was forced to be so rough. How she had to be something she wasn't. Maybe it was because she was displaced, just like him, with nobody other than her four friends on this entire planet that knew of her existence or cared if it continued. It all hit terribly close to home. Or, in a much less deep sense, maybe it was because she was one of the most attractive people he'd ever seen in his life, who liked flying and wearing short skirts and saw no reason that the two should be mutually exclusive.

It was one of those. Or all three. And now, out of the blue, she came to him for help. Just his luck, it was for help with Robin. He never hated someone as much as he hated Robin. There was his anger management, his stupid traffic light costume, his tendency to punch first and ask questions later, his underhanded way of delivering those punches… and there was Starfire.

It was absurd of him to hate a guy for having a girl he never had a chance with, but that didn't make it any less easy.

What made it worse was that Robin was probably a guy just like him, with dead parents and a background in some kind of athletics—from the amount of parkour and the brutish way he held himself in fights, Red X would guess that he grew up a street kid. The main difference between Robin and Red X was that Robin got lucky. That was probably another reason Red X hated him so much. He got lucky, somehow. Or maybe he was born rich, and being born rich was really just cosmic luck.

He wouldn't take on this case for revenge, though. He couldn't. Starfire would never forgive him, and that thought made his stomach knot up so tightly that it hurt.

This was pathetic. How could he let this happen? For now, he had to get some sleep.

…

In direct contradiction to Red X's fears that it would rain sparsely at some point in the week and he'd miss his meeting with Starfire, the next spot of rain Jump City saw was an epic thunderstorm. As soon as it started, he pulled on his suit and pressed the teleport button, appearing on the stage of the abandoned theater. He decided to leave the light off, as he preferred to watch the storm through holes in the walls.

This was not a good balance of power. Right now, Starfire held all of it. She decided when they met. She decided why. She decided where, although it was in his hidey-hole. While he waited, he devised a way to control all three.

To pass the time, he took out an X shuriken and folded it so that the sharp points stuck out on both ends and flipped it between his fingers expertly.

"Ah, cutie," he remarked when she finally landed in front of him. To his delight, a flash of lightning and clap of thunder punctuated his words. "Right on time."

"Were you waiting for a long time? My apologies."

"Yeah. Look, this isn't how it's gonna go down anymore. None of this 'I'll see you when the wind blows from the east' stuff."

She wrinkled her nose at him unappreciatively. "That is not what I said."

He ignored that. "So, cutie, what's first on the agenda? The storm scare you? Wanna cuddle?" He spread his arms for the desired effect.

Now it was her turn to ignore him. "I would like to show you which building it was."

"Now? It's frickin' pouring. I vote for cuddles until it stops."

"Rise. We will not waste time with this banter." The stage was so hollow and rickety that even Starfire's dainty steps made hollow thuds on its surface.

Red X stuck his hand vertically into the air. Instead of helping him up, Starfire fixed him with a steady but sour look.

"Either you help me up or we'll lie next to each other on the floor to get close enough to teleport. I think someone does want cuddles."

Grudgingly, she hoisted him to his feet and he reached around her to close her in the circle of his arm. He almost felt guilty about how much he liked having her there, and he decided to go a little easier on the flirting. She was trusting him, after all. Maybe if he spent less time flirting and more time being nice, she'd be willing to get to know him a little. She was just so easy to tease.

He teleported them outside of the theater and she rose in the air above him, extending her hands for his.

"Oh, no," he told her uneasily. "I've seen you do this with Robin. There's no way you're hauling me through the air like that."

"Do not be such the baby," Starfire teased, and he could see how happy she was to have an opportunity to make him uncomfortable.

He smirked at her. "Okay, fine. But instead of linking hands, hold onto my wrists." She furrowed her brow at him but did as she was told. Once she had a firm grip on his wrists, he reciprocated, closing his fingers around her slender wrists. "It's called a trapeze hold. It's more secure."

She looked intrigued, but all she gave him for his effort was a small nod. The wind whipped at them as she flew, and Red X got the feeling that they were flying into a tornado. He was fine with the Kevlar blocking out most of the rain, but Starfire must have been feeling it.

She landed on a building in the middle of downtown. It must have been tricky to push Garzonas off the building with so many potential witnesses, and Red X thought for a moment that maybe Robin hadn't done it after all. But then he realized that the building was the tallest around, and indeed one of the tallest in Jump. It would be hard to discern exactly what happened, and if someone thought they saw him push Garzonas off, Robin could easily lie and say that it was punch that accidentally knocked him over.

While that didn't technically clear him of the crime, the people would probably be more willing to sweep the whole thing under the carpet for their shining hero. That was another thing that struck Red X as wholly unfair. If Red punched someone and led to their falling off a building, the insinuations that he'd done it on purpose would far outnumber those who defended him. But for their Golden Boy, they'd be willing to read into it and make lies out of truth. The desire to incriminate Robin returned in full force.

"You know," Red X said sourly as she set him on the roof, "this would have been a whole lot easier if we didn't have to do this in the middle of a hurricane."

"You exaggerate. It is not a hurricane," Starfire corrected him. "I simply want to show you or positioning." Without another word, she hooked her arm through Red X's and marched him less than a yard away from the edge of the building, then she released his arm and flew to the other side, which was where she appeared when she heard Garzonas falling.

She landed next to Red X and peered at him, acting out hoe she checked to see if Robin was okay, then she hovered over the edge and she nosedived to the ground. He pressed the teleport pad and if Starfire was startled to see him there, she didn't show it.

"I checked for a pulse and when I looked up, Robin was still looking down. We looked at each other for a few moments before I flew back up to him and asked him what happened." In order for him to hear her over the storm, she had to shout. "Are you able to draw any conclusions?"

Well, yeah. That Robin pushed Garzonas over the edge. But he couldn't keep other scenarios from playing in his mind. Of Robin advancing on Garzonas, trapping him between himself and the fall, and Garzonas jumping over the edge to avoid time in prison. Of Robin accidentally punching him over the edge, like he said. Of Robin acting in self-defense. None of that made up for the fact that, according to Starfire, Robin didn't try to catch him with a grappling hook.

"Not really," he mumbled. The opportunity to incriminate Robin, to make Starfire think he did it, was there. So tempting. But dammit, he wanted to see this through to the end. "Stay here," Red X shouted over the wind and the rain. He teleported to the edge of the building parallel to the one Starfire had just shown him, then to the one next to that, circling the building twice for good measure. The recording device built into his mask would catch the information on the cameras that he needed in order to hack into them later.

Starfire was waiting impatiently, wringing her hands nervously as her hair dripped with water. "I'm going to see what I can get from hacking," he told her, and she nodded to show she understood. "Let's get out of here."

Without a word of protest, she stepped close to Red X and he teleported them back to the theater. Starfire was shivering, with cold or nerves, he didn't know, and he fetched them both towels. The water seemed to evaporate from her skin without the aid of the towel, which was fascinating and he found himself staring.

"My body temperature rises when I get cold," she explained, her tone of voice morose.

"Oh," he mumbled, and averted his eyes. "That's cool." While the Kevlar stopped the rain from pelting him when they were flying into it, it didn't make him waterproof, and he couldn't just evaporate the water away. He tossed the belt away and grabbed the hem of his shirt. "Oh. Um," he said awkwardly when he found Starfire watching. "Do you mind if I just change my shirt?"

Mutely, she shook her head. In one fluid motion, he vested himself of his shirt, careful to leave the mask on, and he toweled himself off. He was still uncomfortably wet under his mask and pants, but nothing could be done about that now. He crouched to one of the loose floorboards where he kept extra uniforms and lifted it with deft fingers.

He stood to shrug the shirt on when he noticed Starfire still looking at him. The fact made him swallow convulsively a few times. Surely if their situations were reversed and he was looking at her, it would be inappropriate and wrong and rude and all that other crap. He wasn't really sure how he should feel about it, but what he knew he felt was a kick in his stomach and an odd, blood-rushing sensation that made his head cloud. Knowing that he probably shouldn't, he slung the Nomex and Kevlar blend over his arm and walked over to her.

"Are you okay?" he asked sincerely.

"Okay?" she echoed. "I… yes. I believe so."

"I gotta ask…" He paused, trying to think of a way to put this delicately. Finding none, he barreled on. "Do you think he did it?"

"I hope he did not," she answered sadly. "I wish he did not. But, I suppose, if I thought there was no chance that he did it, I would not be here."

Now that his chest was dry, he was overcome with a desire to towel off his hair. So what if she knew who he was? He wanted to trust. But no, she was a Titan. She was against him. They were on opposite sides, and for every step he took toward her, she would have to take one back. Circling, always circling, never coming any closer.

"I do appreciate your help," she said, a small smile tugging at her lips. He envisioned himself cupping her cheek and running his thumb over her lower lip before leaning in for a kiss. He squeezed his eyes shut tight until the vision ebbed away to spiraling dots.

"Um, yeah. No problem."

"Since you are unhappy with my decision of when we shall meet, how shall we decide?"

He smirked at her. "Oh, cutie, hacking takes a while."

Her brow furrowed. "Do you require longer than two weeks?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Depending on what I find and how long I can spend looking for it, I might need to see you tomorrow."

She was beginning to get suspicious now. "So, when do you—?"

"I need a way to get in touch with you when I need to."

"Oh. No. Absolutely not." She stood up quickly to emphasize how much she did not want that.

"Then this isn't going to work."

Starfire sighed. "Very well." She was silent, and for a fleeting moment, Red X thought she was about to call the whole thing off. "What languages do you speak?"

That was unexpected. "Um, a few. German, French, Italian…" As he listed languages, she gave him a small shake of her head, indicating that the answer was unsatisfactory. "Uh… Romani."

"Perfect. I do not know Romani."

"I don't get it," Red X said dully.

"If I do not know a language, then Robin does not know it, either!" she explained brightly.

"How?"

"Tamaraneans have the ability to learn languages instantaneously."

"Oh. That's useful."

She sighed at his apparent lack of understanding. "I will give you my contact information for the computer, but we must be careful, as none of my friends know the mission I have set for myself." Her voice held the edge of guilt, but she continued. "By conversing in Romani, which I can learn from you instantaneously, we may communicate in secret."

"Oh! Gotcha. How do you learn it?"

She became sheepish. "…Through lip contact."

He choked. "I'm sorry?"

"It is common practice on my planet!" she snapped, annoyed. "We will need to perform a language transfer. And I will know if you turn it into something it is not intended to be. And there will be consequences." A green ball of light came into life in her hand as a demonstration.

"Yeah. I get it."

"Good. Now, come here."

There was no way that this was happening. He was dreaming. He had to be. And now she was beckoning to him with one finger and he couldn't do anything except comply. He kneeled in front of her, his heart thumping too quickly in his chest.

It didn't matter that she was being so clinical about it. She was going to kiss him, and she wasn't trapped by one of his gadgets, and she smelled so nice. He flipped his mask up to the bridge of his nose and placed his hands on the floor.

She leaned forward, and as her damp hair brushed against his neck, he realized that he hadn't put his shirt back on. Why didn't she say anything? Was it really no big deal on Tamaran to go around casually kissing guys without their shirts on? He stayed still, so that she couldn't tell him he tried to turn it into something, and he let her lips touch against his.

It was actually a very special kind of torture. As he found out, a language transfer is not like a kiss at all. Her lips pressed against his hard, and she didn't move them at all. It was a glorified grandma-kiss. Accidentally, he flexed his jaw and she pulled back immediately, glaring.

"I… sorry," he said, glad that most of his face was covered because he was blushing quite hard. "I wasn't expecting that."

"It is not a kiss," she reminded him, one eyebrow lowered.

"I know, sorry," he mumbled, "It was kind of just a reaction. I didn't mean it. So, anyway, did it work?"

"No. You startled me before it could finish."

"Sorry," he said automatically. "Ah… wanna go again? Or… not. No big deal."

"Oh, for the love of X'hal. Just keep still." She shuffled closer to him so that her knees were pressed against his, and brought her hands up to the back of his head. Again, their lips pressed together, only this time she was holding him close and her chest brushed against his. His mouth fell open, possibly from shock, possibly out of instinct. He honestly wasn't trying to steal a kiss from her. She made a noise in her throat, a warning, but apparently decided that she'd rather complete this transfer than suffer through another one.

Every nerve was on fire. She wasn't kidding about her body temperature rising when she got cold. She was so warm and soft and kissing him, and everything about her—the way she smelled, the parts of her that touched him, the heat that rolled off of her, and the static that he swore was jumping between their lips was too much to fight. His lips twitched again and he thought she want soft against him, but just like that, it was over.

"This is Romani?" Starfire asked in perfect Romani, sounding curious.

"Ah… yeah. You got it. So can I speak Tamaranean now?"

"Unfortunately, it does not work on humans," she answered with a giggle. Did that count as flirting? "Where di you learn to speak such an exotic language?"

Ooh. Mood killer. Red X quickly shrugged his shirt on. "My parents," he answered solemnly.

Her posture slackened a little. "Oh. They are…" She let her voice trail off sympathetically.

He raised his eyes to hers even though she couldn't see. He was defiant. "Dead. My parents are dead."

"Red X…" she murmured in English.

He continued to speak in Romani. Once the language rolled from his tongue after being unspoken for so many years, he found that he didn't want to stop. It seemed fitting that he tell the story of his parents in their native language. "My parents were gypsies. They were always so artsy—I remember my mother crocheted almost nonstop when I was little—and they joined the circus when they were both young. They had me and we… we flew. They died in a trapeze accident. Their big thing was that they didn't use a net, and some thug in Gotham cut their lines in order to get the circus to give him extortion money. They fell. Right in front of me."

When he lifted his gaze back to her, he was surprised to find tears in her eyes. "They died in front of you?"

"Yeah. I was nine."

To his surprise, she reached for his shoulders and drew him close to her. "That is awful. My parents died, too. In a war."

Slowly, to make sure it was okay, Red X snaked his arms around her waist. She didn't threaten to blast him or make an unappreciative noise, so he figured he was in the clear. After a few moments, Starfire pulled back. "Perhaps that is why I want to make sure that Robin did not kill that man," she said softly, in English. "He did a horrible thing, but someone somewhere cared about him. He was someone's son. Maybe he was someone's father. Someone's love."

Red X looked at her dully as she spoke. Her words opened a wound in him. A wound that was as old as it was deep. How could her tell her that he was none of those things to anybody? If Robin pushed him off a roof, no one would care. No one would miss him. What occurred between them tonight was the closest he felt to 'loved' since his parents died.

Seeing that he had nothing more to add, Starfire brushed off her skirt and stood. "I must hurry back before I am missed." Switching to Romani, she said, "Goodbye."

He wished she wouldn't go. He desperately wanted her to stay. If she didn't stay, the wound inside him would swallow him whole until there was nothing left.

Of course, he didn't say that and she couldn't know, so she floated back to her Tower filled with people who loved her while he stayed in his wet, dark theater until he could clear the buzzing in his mind long enough to press the teleport pad on his belt.

…

Swiveling back and forth gently in his office chair, Red X scrolled down.

While the rain had cleared, the clouds and the overall gloom remained. The white light from Red X's computer screen was the brightest source of illumination in the room, creating on odd glow over the young man's unmasked face.

He'd hacked into the cameras using the IP numbers and serial numbers from the recordings in his mask, scrambling his IP address as a precaution.

The footage he got had a hole. The cameras had either been deactivated or tampered with. If it hadn't been for a seagull that landed on the roof of the building Starfire had taken him to last night, he wouldn't have noticed. But there was a loop. The same bird landed on the roof four times, preening its feathers with its beak for exactly twenty-eight seconds, then flies away. Six minutes play before the loop starts again. It was the same on all of the cameras, the bird landing and ruffling its feathers. Sloppy for a loop, really. But convenient for Red X.

He opened the video messager on his laptop, leaving his IP scrambled, and he typed in Starfire's contact information. "Meet me at the theater in five," he typed.

"What?" was the instant reply. "Five minutes? I require more time to prepare."

He could see that she was still typing, but he ignored that and typed, "Five minutes." Snapping his laptop shut, he reached for his Nomex suit and changed quickly. He pulled the mask over his head, wishing he didn't need it but pushing the thought back as he pressed the teleport pad.

He lounged on the stage, folding his arms behind his head and crossing an ankle over his knee. She'd come, and she'd come soon. Not in five minutes, although that hardly mattered. That specificity was just to annoy her.

And annoyed she was, landing in front of him on stage like auburn fire, her eyes catlike and very slightly predatory. It was a good look on her.

"You're late," he said simply, making no move to get up.

"And you are insufferable," she growled, putting her hands on her hips. "Why the sudden meeting? Is everything the okay?"

"I do have news." Taking a dramatic pause, he sat as slowly as he possibly could and drew his knees to his chest, resting his elbows on them. "But there's something I need from you first."

"From me?"

"All the extra teleport trips you're making go on re eating up my xynothium. I'm going to have to make another run." Her face fell. She didn't like where this was going at all. "I expect your cooperation."

"I cannot help you. My friends will recognize me."

No moral objections? No obligations of duty? That was unexpected. "Don't worry. Sometimes it's worth it to have a girl on the inside."

She was not happy about this at all, but she didn't object. Was she really that desperate to know the truth?

"The shipment comes in on Friday. With your help, I should be able to bag a whole pod of xynothium."

"Very well. What is your news?" Starfire asked, her curiosity burning into her voice.

"Someone… someone looped the tapes, cutie. It plays the same thing over and over for about half an hour. The same half hour you and Robin were on the roof."

Her attitude changed immediately. Her face became shuttered and she crossed her arms over her chest. "I see."

"It's… not looking good."

"A loop in the video tapes is not conclusive evidence," she snapped.

Well, fine, then. If she was going to defensive and snippy about it, he wasn't going to coddle her. "If we're going to continue looking into this, I need you to be open-minded. If you've already decided that he's innocent, then no evidence I give you is going to change your mind."

Oh, wow, she was pissed. She bristled at his words and he thought she starbolt him then. But as quickly as she became angry, she wilted. "It is difficult. On Tamaran, matters like these are of no consequence. Bad blood between families, but as long as a person has a criminal record, the government does not protect them. It is so different here." She turned away from him, her back hunched, and clutched her elbows sadly.

"Uh…" he stammered, thrown off by her violent mood swing. He stood abruptly and reached out to put a hand on her shoulder, but decided against it and dropped his arms at his sides awkwardly. "It's… okay. It's a tricky situation, I guess."

"There are many things I do not understand. Like you." She turned to him suddenly, her hair whipping out around her and her emerald eyes fixed on his mask.

"Ahh… what?"

"You are not as I expected. You are kind, if overbearing. You are not mean spirited, or megalomaniacal, or like any of the criminals I have met. Perhaps selfish, but not, I believe, because you wish to be." She stepped closer to him, just a little, bit it made him freeze up. She was trying to peer through his mask at his eyes, he realized, so he shut his eyes. "You have the skill… perhaps a spot on the Titans would be simple to arrange?"

No. No, no, no. He snapped his eyes open and put his hands on her biceps, anchoring her in one place. Joining a team was out of the question. Their cute little organization was fun now, but when they started stabbing each other in the back they'd learn what he learned already—It's a dog eat dog world. Every man for himself. This was what got him through the loneliness that sometimes threatened to swallow him up. Everyone was lonely, the only difference was that some people knew it and some people surrounded themselves with shams of friends, and they ended up worse because of it. Didn't the Titans learn after their brush with the geomancer?

"No. Sorry. That's not really my style."

"Yes. You are solitary, are you not? The great Red X does not need to be weighted down with teams and friends." The way she said it, with a challenging smile and such a soft tone, took out the sting of the truth in her words.

He chuckled. "What can I say? Not many people can keep up with my awesome speed and agility."

Coldness pricked at Red X's skin when she removed her hands from his arms and took a step back. "You would be surprised."

Red X's heart fluttered in his chest and picked up its normal rhythm with vigor, pounding far too loudly. "Starfire," he began, and that may have been the first time he called her by her name. It was the first time he could recall deliberately doing so.

Before he could continue, her communicator beeped. She unclipped it from her belt and stared at it, wide eyed, and she frantically gestured for Red X to remain quiet. As she engaged the audio, it made a series of beeps.

"Starfire? Where are you?" The voice of Gotham's favorite Boy Wonder, spread to Jump like some brightly colored disease, demanded.

"I ventured to the mall of shopping. I desired one of the shaken milks—"

"Why's your video disabled?"

What an obsessive, suspicious prick.

…Then again, she was teaming up with an enemy of the Titans to find out whether or not he killed someone after he told her didn't.

But still. Wasn't trust supposed to define their team? Or something corny like that.

"I am in flight."

"On your way home?"

"Indeed."

"Good. Careful, Star." There was a hint of tenderness in Robin's voice that made Red X bristle unreasonably.

"Fret not, Robin. I am on my way back, presently."

"Okay. Robin, out."

"Starfire, out." She flicked her eyes to Red X's, looking somewhat confused. She didn't know what to say.

"You go on and enjoy your date," he said acidly. "Just remember. Friday." Deny the date. Do it, Starfire.

"Red X…" she murmured, still looking confused. Instead of continuing, she backed away slowly until she was underneath a patch of rotted-out ceiling and she flew through a hole in the wall.

Just to make himself feel better, Red X threw an X which stuck into the ground like a pike before promptly exploding.

Now to get to that building.

There were three ways to catch whoever tampered with the cameras. First, he could go check the cameras at the corners of other buildings, to see if he could catch a glimpse of someone messing with them around the time Robin may have pushed Felipe Garzonas off the roof. Second was to check to see if there were any bugs installed on the cameras that allowed remote control of the surveillance systems, including rewriting the tapes. Lastly, and the most annoying option, was to see if Robin had the Jump City monitor system codes, and if they allowed him to change video evidence. Red X didn't doubt that he had the codes, considering how damn content the city was to keep the vigilantes happy.

He teleport jumped to downtown, since he needed to burn up the last of this stick of xynothium before he could dispose of it. There were cameras all around this city, tucked into the lips of buildings, disguised inside a billboard, inside streetlights. You just needed to know where to look. And Red X did.

Once the cloaking mechanism on his suit was engaged, he crouched over one of the cameras he inspected earlier. The cloaking mechanism was necessary so that he didn't have to go back and upload the loop he took—this one cleverly bird-free—into the cameras behind him. The xynothium might have been a lot of work to get, but cloaking and teleport capabilities were worth it.

No bug on this camera. Or any of the cameras in a direct ring around the building. As soon as he came to that conclusion, Red X's belt sparked red. No more xynothium. No more power. No more gadgets, outside of the shuriken which ran on backup. Damn. It was a really good thing he was going to have Starfire help him snag more xynothium. He would need her help.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Red X jump. The arrival of someone new took him completely by surprise. Nobody just snuck up on him. It took skill. A lot of skill. And with him being down one fully powered suit, he was even more off guard than usual.

It didn't help his frayed nerves when he turned to face the Dark Knight of Gotham. "Holy heart attack!" he groaned as his blood froze. "Batman!" The young thief threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Whatever you think I did, I didn't do it!"

The Caped Crusader did not look amused in the slightest at Red X's outburst. "What are you doing now?"

"Um… Camera cleanup crew?"

With a particularly blood-chilling glare that Red X immediately christens 'the Bat-glare', the Batman recited, as though it were written on a sign around his neck, "Dick Grayson. Eighteen years old. You live on the fourth floor of Jump Wayne Tower."

"Um. Pleasure to meet you." Red X stuck his hand out graciously. "And your name is?"

Batman's eyes narrowed to white slits that peeked out from the black cloth of the cowl. "If you're looking into the Felipe Garzonas case…"

Red X gulped. Any second now, Bat-handcuffs would snap around his wrists and he'd never see the light of day again.

"I need to know what you have."

"I wasn't going to use it as blackmail or anything. I was just investigating for a friend." Not strictly true. Once he had the evidence, Red X wasn't sure what he'd do with it. Probably, because of Starfire, nothing.

"I'm investigating the case."

All Red X had to offer in response was a surprised, "…Oh." He paused, confused, and added, "So you're not going to arrest me?"

"Is that what I need to do to get you to cooperate?" Batman asked impatiently.

"Um, no. I just thought… you know." He gestured at himself. "Bad guy." He gestured at Batman. "Equally scary good guy."

A wave of a spike-gauntleted hand dismissed the matter. "Thievery doesn't interest me as much when it doesn't overlap with violence or extortion."

"Oh. Yeah, I've been investigating. The Garzonas guy. Um… Well, you know Robin was there. He… he didn't save him. That's not killing, but, I mean, isn't that against your Bat-code?"

Back to the Bat-glare. Boy, X was coining so many catchy new phrases today.

"Um, right now I'm checking the cameras. I already know that they've been tampered with, a crappy excuse for a loop tipped me off. It stretches over the bracket of time that Garzonas died."

"Hm," Batman responded neutrally. "And now you're checking to see if he left a trace."

"Yeah."

"Would you rather have the Jump City master computer controls?"

Well, damn. Maybe he'd solve this whole thing before Friday. "That'd be nice. But if I find out that it was Robin who switched the tapes, that's not… conclusive."

"It's conclusive enough for my purposes."

Red X let his gaze drop down to the cameras, thinking. Conclusive enough for his purposes. This was tricky. Red X could either incriminate Robin permanently, opening up several doors for himself and leaving many other Jump City criminals in his debt, or he could hand over all of his findings to Batman, which would likely get him amnesty for everything he'd done and maybe… Opportunities. He looked back up only to find that Batman was gone.

He didn't feel annoyed so much as he felt like he'd been bestowed a great honor. A Bat-honor.

…

Friday yielded rainy weather. The weather had been kind of decent all week, but Friday night was forecasting thunderstorms.

Red X was pacing nervously around his penthouse. The xynothium run was today, but he wasn't very nervous for that. He was nervous to see Starfire again, and not good-nervous.

Batman's city codes helped a lot. He could tap into any city-owned camera anywhere. An the city and one camera inside the Tower, which nobody thought it worthy to mention to Red X before he began hacking cameras.

Giving him the codes at all was a way to test him, he knew. Batman was more than likely surveying his usage of the cameras as he used them. But he couldn't stop himself from using the camera in the tower. The city probably had it installed as a failsafe. Robin must have hated that.

He used that camera tactfully. When the Titans were going on a mission, he'd find out where they were going from the camera in their living room and then switch to the camera in that sector on his computer. He could see Robin's fighting tactics that way, and, most likely, Batman could do. Red X hoped that would be an eye opener.

But it wasn't all tact. A lot of it was jealousy.

Starfire and Robin. Were they? Weren't they? She seemed ready and eager to touch him—a supportive touch on his shoulder, a friendly hug, cowering behind him when they watched a horror movie. She did that with all of their friends. Arm wrestling with Cyborg, playing with Beast Boy in his cat form. Maybe that was just how she was.

Fuck it. It still bothered him. He hated it when she sat next to him on the couch, when they exchanged understanding smiles, when they walked into the common room in the middle of a conversation. He wanted to be that for her. Her friend. Maybe more. As much fun as he was having, there were many more disadvantages to being her enemy than there would be to being her friend.

And what if he did join the team? It wouldn't change. She'd still trust Robin more. He'd still be her best friend. Red X really hated that.

Battling with his inner voyeur was not the only thing Red X had accomplished since his talk with Batman. He'd found evidence. Found it and sent it to Bats, as he affectionately called him (when he wasn't around). He mentioned the xynothium shipment to Batman and his plans to steal from it. Bats actually gave him permission to steal it, which was baffling (2) as the xynothium market was pretty tangled up now.

They had a plan. Bats wanted to give Robin one more chance. See how he handled a newly stressful situation under his current state. If he didn't pass some weird superhero on-the-field psych test, Bats was going to haul him off to Gotham. It was extremely underhanded, and Red X felt sort of slimy about it. But it wasn't his place to tell Batman that, and he was still working on earning brownie points from the ol' cape and cowl. Not that he could ever tell when he did something right, because Batman seemed to have one facial expression and one expression only. It was something between an 'I don't have time for this' look and an 'if you don't tell me what I want to know immediately I will punch you in the face and it will hurt' look.

By the time the xynothium shipment came in—he knew exactly when it came in, too, because of the cameras—he was itching to get out of his penthouse and do something. Red X had a lot of strings to pull, here. Robin, Starfire, and in a way, Batman, if the live feed Bat-earpiece he sported was any evidence.

"Ready, cutie?" he typed in Romani into the messenger.

"I have not heard from you," she answered immediately. "Is everything all right?"

"Talk after."

"Ready?" he asked, touching her fingers to the earpiece instinctively.

"Don't be ridiculous," the gravelly voice of Batman answered. "I'm always ready. And don't touch your ear; that will be a tipoff to Robin that something's amiss. It's a live feed, remember."

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry."

"I'm not worried. I have all the information I need."

"Such as?"

"I can see your heartbeat's up a little. Nervous, Dick?"

Damn. How creepy. "Um…"

"I installed monitoring into the while you were out yesterday." And it just gets creepier. "Robin, Batgirl, and Batwoman all have the same tech in their suits. It's so I can keep track in case of poisoning or drugging."

"You think I'll be poisoned or drugged?" Red X asked dully as he clipped his cape onto his suit and pulled his gloves on.

"It's for the long term."

Red X's breath hitched. The long term? That must mean that he wanted him to join his band of vigilantes. Batman must have seen the change in breathing on whatever monitors he had sprawled out in front of him wherever he was now.

"We have work to do, now." Meaning, we can talk about the superhero thing later. Of course.

The xynothium shipment was completely legal. They were going to be stored in that special safe Red X found when he first came to Jump. Now that he knew where the black market was, Red X didn't like stealing the legal xynothium.

There was a rat in the xynothium collectors, though. Professor Chang paid him off to take some of the xynothium before it reached the safe and keep it off the inventory. Nobody would miss it. Which made it fair game.

Chang had wised up to Red X's ploy, and he hired X-insurance. Which was just more of his goons with their staves of red goo. He didn't need his usual gadgets to take them out. A single silver case of xynothium lay in one of the goons' hands limply and Red X took it.

"Too easy," he mumbled to himself.

"Careful," Batman advised him.

"I just took out all those dudes and no Titans in sight. I have to double check." He pressed the hatch releases on the case. It was lined with xynothium, which Red X quickly shielded from the gently falling rain. Its red glow lent the night, already starless and moonless, a particularly eerie glow. "It looks legit."

Something cracked—a twig under someone's foot, a leaf, or maybe it was the splosh of a foot landing too heavily in a puddle.

It was a warning. Red X closed the briefcase and rolled to the side just in time, as a flash of re, yellow, and green landed on the ground where he'd been a moment ago.

Red X palmed three shuriken and threw them at Robin, who blocked them with his bo-staff. Two exploding devices forced Red X to hop back—that asshole, he'd blow up the xynothium. He stooped to pick up the case and get it out of here.

The case was gone. Red X looked around, panicked, when he caught the silver shine being lifted into the air. Starfire carrying through with her part of the deal.

Just as relief began to course through him, a nasty hook to the jaw knocked him back. That was his fault for being distracted. Robin pounced on him, wrenching his arm back for a slug in the face. Red X let the shot land, trying to get a good example for Bats. He tasted blood in his mouth as the force of Robin's punch knocked his cheek against his teeth.

That was enough of that. Red X curled brought his knees up, kneeing Robin in the back approximately over his kidney. It was enough to make the boy Wonder cringe on impact and gave Red X an opportunity to roll, knocking Robin completely off balance.

Cyborg's cannon went off and hit the earth in front of red X, blowing chunks of dirt up at the thief's face. He ducked behind a tree to shield himself from the attacks and a black band of energy shaped vaguely like a staple jutted through the bark.

That helped, actually. Red X used Raven's energy staple to give himself enough leverage to flip onto one of the lower branches of the tree. It should be relatively simple from here. Avoid and disappear, then come back with Starfire to get the xynothium.

He swatted at a bug that was buzzing around his face, belatedly noticing that the insect was markedly green. The bug turned into a house cat, landing on his shoulders and knocking him off balance as claws dug into his flesh. This wasn't good. He needed xynothium. He needed his teleport pad.

The changeling was thrown off him almost as soon as he hit the ground, and the hard thunk followed by a groan told him that Beast Boy landed against a tree.

Robin was over Red X before he had a chance to get up. The vigilante fisted the thief's suit in his gloved hands, snarling, "You stay away from her."

He couldn't be serious. The feeling was mutual, but this wasn't the time. "I don't know what you're talking about," Red X growled.

Robin pushed his head roughly against the bark of the tree, pressing against his throat. "Don't screw around with me. She chose the team and you chose yourself. Don't make it any harder on her than it already is."

Forcing the blades on his wrists to pop out, Red X slashed the back of it across Robin's chest, only enough to cut open his tunic in an ugly tear and not leave a serious cut. The two boys rolled, punching and kicking at each other.

Robin was a little taller, however, and he had the advantage. Red X wound up pinned again, after a knee to the stomach had hi doubling over in pain. A punch to the face, another to his stomach and Red X's vision was peppered with dots—

"Robin! Stop!"

"Stay out of this Starfire," he growled at her as Re X forced himself to sit up. Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven were watching, wide eyed.

"Please, Robin. This is not you. Ever since Felipe's Garzonas's death, you have been most irritable."

"I'm so tired of you blaming me for that," Robin snarled, standing and turning to her. "I didn't do anything wrong. And if I did kill him, I should be treated like a hero, not punished for it. Garzonas was terrorize the city. Women didn't feel safe in their own homes. People were killing themselves. I saved them."

Cyborg approached Robin carefully, as though he was trying to soothe a frightened cat. "Dude, come on. Maybe we should talk for a little while."

"Make sure he gets locked up," Robin growled, gesturing at Red X, leaning against the trunk of a tree and holding his stomach.

Starfire turned her gaze to him and crouched down next to him, mud staining her boots and her skirt. "Are you okay?"

Red X furrowed his brow at her. "Hang on. Are you speaking Romani or English?"

"He has a concussion. Let me see." Raven crouched beside Red X and put one hand on his forehead and the other on the back of his head. Shaking his head blearily, he muttered, "Thanks. Man. That hurt."

"Where's the xynothium?" Beast Boy asked, still standing although his boots were flecked with mud. His arms were crossed to give him a more intimidating air, but he kept glancing in the direction that Robin and Cyborg had gone off.

"Dude," Red X said with a chuckle. "I so don't know."

…

He couldn't even make it back to his penthouse. Batman was AWOL, probably dealing with his brat of a son, or whatever kind of weird relationship they had with each other. In his theater, Red X kept a miniature fridge, and of this pulled an ice pack. Well, three ice packs. He sucked on a cube of ice in a lazy attempt to get his cheek to stop bleeding.

He wanted to teleport to his penthouse and lay on his comfy bed, but he had to settle for stretching out on two dingy, moth bitten red seats and listening to rain leak through the holes in the ceiling.

He heard the approaching footsteps; he just didn't have the energy to deal with it. If it was some drug-crazed teenager, let him shank him, for all Red X cared. He wasn't going to get up.

"Red X."

"Ah. Cutie. Come to visit me on my deathbed, I see."

She sighed tiredly and threw something at him. He didn't have to look to know what it was.

"Don't throw xynothium. It's very delicate. You could blow this whole place to smithereens."

"Yet you sound largely unconcerned."

"Sorry, cutie. I'm too busy being beaten-the-crap-out-of to properly care. Try aain in the morning."

"The Batman told me everything."

Oh. He could get up for that. Holding an ice pack to his cheek and letting the others slide off his bruised body, he sat up to face her. "You hate me, don't you?" he asked forlornly. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to trick him into behaving a certain way."

She was quiet for a few moments, thinking carefully. She pushed down the seat of a chair next to him, sitting delicately and taking the ice pack from his hand, pressing it against his cheek over his mask. "I do not hate you. Perhaps I wish you would have told me that the Batman was investigating Robin's behavior. I do understand that he instructed you not to do so," she said, cutting off his forming protest. "I trusted you, and I suppose I was hurt when you did not reciprocate that trust."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. She was barely even scolding him, yet he felt so unbearably guilty.

"The Batman mentioned that you uncovered one more piece of evidence about Garzonas?"

Red X touched his forehead. "It's not… conclusive. It never is, with him. He covers up his tracks. I saw the R symbol on one of the bugs that Robin put on the cameras to upload the loop into them. Anyone could have been holding them, it could be a very elaborate attempt at framing him. But that's what I saw." When she didn't say anything else, he added, "Without going into extensive interrogations, I think that's all I can give you."

To his surprise, he was wrapped in a warm, gentle embrace. "Thank you for doing that for me."

"No problem," he told her tiredly, sinking into the hug too much, enjoying being close to her too much. Now that this was over, he didn't know when he would see her next.

She pulled away from the hug and gingerly slipped her fingers under the mask at his neck.

"Starfire…" he muttered, his heart fluttering.

"May I?" she asked even as she began peeling back the fabric.

He didn't answer, so instead of taking the mask all the way off, she rested it on the bridge of his nose. She kissed him—a real, proper kiss, with moving mouths and the feel of her nails against his jaw as she held his face still. It was soft, in no small part because he was incredibly sore, and not long. But more than anything, it was a promise.

"The Batman said that he would be taking you under his wing."

Still love-drunk from their kiss, he could only raise his eyebrows stupidly. He hadn't even bothered to fix his mask.

"There is room for a Robin at the Tower. Or Red X, if you choose this persona."

"Actually, I've been thinking about it, and… What do you think of Nightwing, Starfire?"

She smile at him, amused and delighted at his answer. "I think it has a bit of a daring appeal."

"Are you trying to say that it's sexy?"

She giggled happily and, in one gesture, he removed his mask entirely, meeting her bright green eyes with his deep blue ones. Surprised, her mouth fell open slightly, which put him in the perfect position to capture her lips in another kiss.

...

Epilogue

...

Moving into the Tower wasn't so bad. He didn't take Robin's old room. The Tower had plenty of guest rooms, an they'd simply decorated one of those for him. His Nightwing suit came out just the way he wanted it to—black Nomex with a touch of Kevlar (Batman disapproved, he said it wasn't enough; but an acrobat can't be weighted down with all that stiff material), a red triangular design that dipped down his chest and spread over his arms, extending down in a stripe that went to his two middle fingers. Silicone-soled boots, waterproof, and a new domino mask with night vision, infrared, and ultraviolet—he didn't even know what that one was for yet, he was still getting lost in all the tech.

Cyborg had been leading, but he was about ready to throw in the towel. Leading was fun at first, he said, but when it came down to it, there just wasn't enough time to work on the T-car or play video games. Which Nightwing could understand. He'd probably have to adjust to his new schedule as the leader of the Teen Titans.

He had to go to Gotham with Batman for Bat-training. Batman ran him ragged for two weeks straight, but he pretty much assessed that Nightwing was proficient in martial arts and stealth and detective work, although he wasn't that great with the lingo. He was learning quickly, though, and he would probably have to make monthly trips to Gotham to brush up on his skills, but he was eager to get back to Jump. Back to Starfire.

She was a calming factor in his life. She was supportive of his training in Gotham, even if it was stressful on their newly born relationship for him to go off to Gotham as soon as it began, but she understood.

As for Robin… things weren't that great there. He got into a fight with Bruce the night of the xynothium run, and from what Nightwing had heard, he'd taken up a new identity. Red Hood. That would probably come back to bite them later, but for now Nightwing could only that he was all right.

**Author's Note:**

> The end! Remember when I used to write oneshots that were four thousand words long?
> 
> (1) Felipe Garzonas is old Bat-lore. Jason may or may not have pushed him off a building. He was a rapist and one of his victims killed themselves, like in this fic. I pretty much took Jason's aggression and his possibly killing Garzonas from the comics.
> 
> (2) Headcanon alert: I like to think Bruce Wayne and Ollie McQueen have the xynothium monopoly, like DeBeers and diamonds. You can get it elsewhere, but it's more expensive per weight measurement and not as good.
> 
> How the heck did I come up with this idea? Well, I've been kind of kicking around the idea of Robin never having been Robin for another fic, and in her request, The Blue Priestess asked for "fluff" (In which this may have been slightly lacking, my bad. I put some in at the end there!), "rain", and "Robin's jealousy", along with a kiss. I like to do odd things in my requests—play with point of view or twist characterization—and I knew that I wanted to put Red X in here. I couldn't figure out a creative, inventive way to have Robin be jealous of Red X in continuity, and I certainly didn't want to have Starfire cheat on Robin because personally, I hate that. I tried to take it to Gotham, with Dick being Robin and Jason being Red X or Red Hood or whatever, but I didn't like that, because none of the other Titans appeared, and it was basically either an AU or a comics crossover, so then I figured, why not just make it an AU? And, well, I did. So there you go. I was this close to setting this oneshot in my Reach universe and just having it be a special oneshot for The Blue Priestess, but then I was like... nah. I don't wanna do that. Sorry if this wasn't what you were expecting, The Blue Priestess. It wasn't what I was expecting either


End file.
